It’s elemental: Many private wells across U.S. are contaminated with arsenic and other elements
Marla Cone

In Nebraska, along the Platte River, it’s uranium. In Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, it’s arsenic. In California, boron. And in the Texas Panhandle, lithium. Throughout the nation, metals and other elements are tainting private drinking water wells at concentrations that pose a health concern. For one element – manganese – contamination is so widespread that water wells with excessive levels are found in all but just a few states. Arsenic, too, is a national problem, scattered in every region. In the first national effort to monitor well water for two dozen trace elements, geologists have discovered that 13 percent of untreated drinking water contains at least one element at a concentration that exceeds federal health regulations or guidelines. That rate far outpaces other contaminants, including industrial chemicals and pesticides. The most troubling finding involves the widespread contamination of private wells, which are unmonitored and unregulated. (EHN)

Note the misinformation like “terminator technology” – hybrid seeds are generally infertile or revert to base stock after one generation – either way high-productivity hybrids are not suitable for seed saving, something which has absolutely nothing to do with biotechnology. Yes, some work was done to prevent illegal use of proprietary technology (like copy protection on music, videos and/or software that people shouldn’t but do steal – the same kind of thing that built the profits used for philanthropy by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ;-) ).

Either way “Big Agro” is the only way 9 billion people are going to be adequately fed on planet Earth, something farmer’s markets and superstitions like “organics” simply can not achieve. Retro nostalgia and primitive agriculture just won’t do the job. You could harvest between the ears of every greenie on the planet but you just won’t find enough crap to grow food for the current 7 billion population without using synthetic fertilizers and higher productivity crop plants. Get over it.

WASHINGTON, Oct 1, 2011 (IPS) – Home to a fast-growing network of farmers’ markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world’s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.

Conflicting ideologies about agriculture have become ground zero for this war over the production, distribution and consumption of the world’s food.

One camp – led by agro giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – define successful agriculture and hunger alleviation as the use of advanced technologies to stimulate yields of mono-crops.

The other side argues that industrial agriculture pollutes, destroys and disrupts nature by dismissing the importance of relationships necessary for any ecosystem to thrive.

At the heart of this struggle is the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which were given the green light in 1990 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated, “(We) are not aware of any information showing that GMO foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.” (IPS)

WASHINGTON — A NASA-led study has documented an unprecedented depletion of Earth’s protective ozone layer above the Arctic last winter and spring caused by an unusually prolonged period of extremely low temperatures in the stratosphere.

The study, published online Sunday in the journal Nature, finds the amount of ozone destroyed in the Arctic in 2011 was comparable to that seen in some years in the Antarctic, where an ozone “hole” has formed each spring since the mid 1980s. The stratospheric ozone layer, extending from about 10 to 20 miles (15 to 35 kilometers) above the surface, protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.

The Antarctic ozone hole forms when extremely cold conditions, common in the winter Antarctic stratosphere, trigger reactions that convert atmospheric chlorine from human-produced chemicals into forms that destroy ozone. The same ozone-loss processes occur each winter in the Arctic. However, the generally warmer stratospheric conditions there limit the area affected and the time frame during which the chemical reactions occur, resulting in far less ozone loss in most years in the Arctic than in the Antarctic. (NASA News)

Another ‘detectable trace presence must equal massive harm’ waste of space. Hydrocarbon-based foam and plastic products are hygienic and safe. To make them safer still flame retardants are used. The alternative to our exposure to traces of synthesized compounds is exposure to much more of the truly toxic products of moulds, pathogens and pests which make up our natural environment. Curiously, the chemical hand wringers neglect to mention that the more synthetic Man’s environment has become the longer we live relatively disease-free lives. Constructed dwellings are better than dank caves, mattresses an improvement on a pile of grass and animal furs and so on. In the same vein, trivial exposure to flame retardants would seem distinctly preferable to burning to death. Some people appear to have very strange definitions of “unsafe”.

New studies have underscored the potentially harmful health effects of the most widely used flame retardants, found in everything from baby blankets to carpets. Health experts are now calling for more aggressive action to limit these chemicals, including cutting back on highly flammable, petroleum-based materials used in many consumer products. (e360)

SciAm has chosen to run a patently absurd chemical scare piece. What they neglect to mention is that the hapless “Susan” has placed her fetus at greater risk from the exertion of jogging than from any and all of the “toxins” cited, excepted perhaps the herbal tea. How? By raising the temperature of the early developing fetus she risks malformation (commonly cleft [hare] lip and/or cleft palate), although she’d either have to be grossly unfit or pushing herself excessively to cause such a temperature increase. The herbal tea is more of a worry having basically zero quality control and largely unknown constituents. Epic fail from SciAm.

Toxins All around UsExposure to the chemicals in everyday objects poses a hidden health threat
By Patricia Hunt

Susan starts her day by jogging to the edge of town, cutting back through a cornfield for an herbal tea at the downtown Starbucks and heading home for a shower. It sounds like a healthy morning routine, but Susan is in fact exposing herself to a rogue’s gallery of chemicals: pesticides and herbicides on the corn, plasticizers in her tea cup, and the wide array of ingredients used to perfume her soap and enhance the performance of her shampoo and moisturizer. Most of these exposures are so low as to be considered trivial, but they are not trivial at all—especially considering that Susan is six weeks pregnant. (SciAm)

A EUROPEAN Union ban on a pesticide to control bracken has been criticised by leading conservation charities.

Millions of pounds has been spent removing bracken from the Lake District fells because it is a haven for disease carrying ticks, which can spread Lyme disease to humans and Louping Ill to grouse and sheep.

Bracken has spread significantly during recent years sometimes at the expense of other plants and wildlife.

The most effective weapon against it has been a pesticide called Asulam, which targets just the bracken, leaving other vegetation free to grow.

It has been used for decades, but was banned by the EU’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health over concerns about its safety when used on spinach and other food crops. The EU has been re-registering pesticides to adhere to higher food standards, and Asulam failed in one of the tests. (Westmorland gazette)

As I’ve noted here on Forbes, the mainstream media has a pretty amazing knack for ignoring key research when there’s a controversy. So, this summer, we’ve seen a whole series of important studies on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) come and go with next to no coverage, even though the subject has, up until now, generated hundreds of news stories.

Oh, wait, do you think it might be because the studies found that there was no risk? Hmmh… let me think about that for a moment.

If the reaction in the news media to Dr. Oz’s absurd claims about the dangers of arsenic in apple juice has been enormously heartening (essentially the media’s collective “Dr. Oz says this, but the FDA says that” narrative leaves the celebrity cardiothoracic surgeon looking like an unscrupulous and unethical quack), the disheartening part is that too many people will still choose to believe a television doctor who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow in terms of chemistry, over the massed ranks of PhD’s and toxicologists at the Food and Drug Administration.

This abysmal state of affairs was summed up by some fool on The View mouthing off about how we all should be grateful that Dr. Oz is looking out for our kids – as if the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on a vast array of regulatory agencies simply didn’t occur. (Forbes)

Science v. Politics—When a popular chemical is in the regulatory crosshairs, the debate invariably passes through advocacy and industry grinders. Crusaders and apologists go head to head. Hysteria builds. Minds fog. Legislators panic. Bad regulations get passed or reasonable ones get shelved. The public loses.

It’s a stale script, but it unfolds time and again. The latest case involves styrene. While it is natural occurring, it’s also produced synthetically. It’s found in many products, including latex paints, carpet backings, bathtubs, shower stalls and most commonly as an ingredient in polystyrene containers that come in contact with food. Think Chinese take-out food.

In June, the Department of Health & Human Services’ National Toxicology Program (NTP) classified styrene as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” in its mandated 12th report to Congress. What this listing means is very different from how it is being framed by advocacy groups and the media—and this knowledge gap threatens to wreck legislative havoc across the country. (STATS)

Awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature or veto is legislation (AB1319) that would ban the toxic chemical bisphenol A from baby bottles and sippy cups. BPA is a compound that mimics estrogen and has been linked to an array of hormonal and behavioral problems – including early puberty, hyperactivity, breast and prostate cancer, infertility and obesity. (SF Chronicle)

The San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund has just released some provocative data on the presence of bisphenol A — a hormone-mimicking pollutant — in every brand-name canned food it tested. (Science News)

The Great Barrier Reef, that great chain of islands, reefs, shoals and atolls stretching near 2,000 miles and some 40 miles wide in parts (and possessed of its own pain-in-the-butt people-hating bureaucracy operating under the acronym GBRMPA, pronounced ‘Gabroompa’), which has proven indestructible through ice age and interglacial, surviving sea level change of hundreds of feet and a current sea surface temperature span of some 10 °C, is allegedly at risk (again/still) at the puny hand of Man.

This time they are recycling the agricultural chemical scam, probably as a result of Coalition discussion papers on greatly expanding agriculture in Australia’s water-rich north through irrigation infrastructure and development.

If it’s not gorebull warbling it’s development, tourism, chemical outwash, silt, Crown-of-thorns starfish, boat anchors or space aliens (I might have made up that last one) but eternally there’s some fool crying danger to “The Reef! The Reef!”.

Silliest part of all this is that there’d be no buildup of chemicals, silting problems and far less chance of the GBR lagoon warming far enough to cause coral bleaching if we blew some decent shipping channels through the damned thing and let the Pacific flush the lagoon rather than leaving it trapped there like a stagnant puddle.

Tests have revealed high levels of toxins at the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Supplied
The Great Barrier Reef is being contaminated by farm chemicals up to 50 times the levels deemed safe, World Wildlife Fund Australia says.

Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management scientists have found three chemicals – atrazine, diuron and metachlor – were at toxic levels exceeding national standards for contamination of freshwater ecosystems at eight sites along the Great Barrier Reef coast.

The discovery comes as the national chemical regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, considers whether to allow the continued use of diuron. (Brisbane Times)

The investigation began with a vial of blue-green liquid. Roughly two inches tall, it came in a yellow and blue box covered with Chinese characters and, in English, the words “The cat be unemployed.”

It was rat poison, illegal and highly toxic.

The pesticide, which was apparently smuggled into the United States from China, contained one deadly ingredient in a concentration almost 61 times as great as what federal regulations allow, according to court papers. (NYT)

WaPo should know but apparently does not that methyl bromide is a particularly useful soil fumigant and pesticide. Were ship’s cargo holds properly fumigated as a matter of course you likely wouldn’t have pests like the Asian Longhorn beetle in North America, for example. “Ozone depletion” is and always has been a nonsense. Check out ozone’s natural seasonality here and note that the heavily irradiated tropics rarely have as much “ozone protection” as the weakly irradiated polar regions and yet life thrives in the tropics. Even if humans did influence the seasonal change in polar stratospheric ozone levels (and there is no empirical evidence that we do) there is no known negative consequence from that. It’s just another of Ozone Al’s fabricated “emergencies”.

Like other golf courses across America, the Chevy Chase Club in suburban Maryland is caught up in the ancient battle between man and weeds. The club recently informed its members of a major offensive against ugly patches of invasive grass that impede a ball’s roll toward the hole on their velvety greens.

But its preferred method of killing weeds involves a controversial pesticide called methyl bromide, which the Environmental Protection Agency barred most organizations from using years ago. (WaPo)

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Crawling culprit seen in urban kids’ asthma Researchers have identified cockroaches as a potential explanation for dramatic variations between neighborhoods in asthma rates among New York City children. In some New York City neighborhoods, 19 percent — nearly 1 in 5 — children have asthma; in others, the rate is as low as 3 percent. […]

Political Payback – Oregon Style Paul Driessen Confused visitors will be forgiven for thinking Oregon State University is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Congressman Pete DeFazio and the “progressive-socialist” wing of the Democratic Party. Or for likening what’s going on there to political retribution as practiced in Third World thugocracies. (Townhall) […]

The European Union’s taxation commissioner plans to propose a new two-part fuel tax, split into a carbon tax of 20 euros per ton of CO2 and a minimum energy tax on motor fuels and heating fuels. (Reuters).

A first-of-its kind study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that stalled energy projects are costing the New York economy $36.2 Billion and More Than 60,000 Jobs. (Progress Denied: A Study on the Potential Economic Impact of Permitting Challenges Facing Proposed Energy Projects).

Thanks to EPA’s new greenhouse gas permitting authority, a proposed Wisconsin biomass plant has come under fire from green activists. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report: It doesn’t make sense to issue a permit for the project because it would add emissions of carbon dioxide at a rate much higher than a natural gas-fueled power […]

Check out this galling interview of William Ruckelshaus, the EPA administrator who banned DDT. While Ruckelshaus is correct in criticizing Members of Congress for essentially being willfully uninformed on environmental issues, his criticism is astonishingly arrogant given his own willful (and genocidal) ignorance of facts. During 1971-1972, the EPA held seve […]

Don’t miss Peabody Energy exec Fred Palmer’s unapologetic interview with The Guardian (UK). Notable quotes include: “We’re 100% coal. More coal. Everywhere. All the time.” “We don’t have a political allegiance. We’re Americans and our political party is coal.” “Anyone who has the notion that we’re going to move away from fossil fuels just isn’t […] […]

Light bulb makers, in the form of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, will be testifying against a repeal of the 2007 federal light bulb law on March 10 before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The trade group and its member firms have been making their lobbying rounds on Capitol Hill this week. According […]

Democrat-run Oregon State University is apparently retaliating against climate skeptic and congressional candidate Dr. Art Robinson by taking action without cause against his three graduate student children. Robinson put together the petition against climate alarmism signed by 31,000+ U.S. scientists and unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Peter DeFazio in OR-4 l […]

At the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference today, Sierra Club chief Carl Pope casually mentioned that the Sierra Club sits down with corporations having environmental regulatory problems and then uses its expertise in “changing public policy” to help the corporation solve its problem with the government — a novel role for a non-profit organization that […]

Activists love to talk about the hypothetical far-future “health risks” of a less-cold planet. They are not so keen to discuss the very real harms caused by their hysterical anti-carbon claims here and now. We at JunkScience.com are not so reticent. The immediate trigger for this is an article in the Adelaide Advertiser from South […]

At the annual Rentseekers Ball (aka the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics Conference), Royal Dutch Shell gave attendees room-warming gifts — pedometers, with a note that was headlined “Take the First Step.” If they want us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so much, why do they sell us gasoline?

At today’s House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations, Rep. Cory Power (R-CO) asked panel witness Dan Reicher — a longtime anti-nuke campaigner trying to position himself as some sort of “clean energy” expert — what could be done to accelerate the issuance of nuke plant permits. While Reicher […]

New Dehli’s experiment with “clean” natural gas turned out to be not so clean after all. A University of British Columbia study reports that, “A pioneering program by one of the world’s largest cities to switch its vehicle fleet to clean fuel has not significantly improved harmful vehicle emissions in more than 5,000 vehicles – […]

Arizona Public Service is proposing a rate package that includes “decoupling” — i.e.: If approved, that would allow APS to collect a certain amount of revenue per customer regardless of how much energy was sold. Such plans essentially allow a company to earn more money for selling less electricity. Wake up Arizona. Decoupling should be […]

By Steve Milloy March 1, 2011, Investor’s Business Daily It looks as though President Obama may have decided that getting re-elected in 2012 is more important than saving the planet from the much-dreaded global warming. But then how does he break it to the people who helped elect him and whose support he will need […]

The coincidence of: Sen. Sherrod Brown’s letter to Obama about EPA regs; Pew Center chief Eileen Claussen’s “prediction” in today’s Guardian about Obama; and Grist.org’s howling about the Brown letter, may be signs that Obama is preparing his base for the impending news that the EPA will be delaying implementation of its greenhouse gas regulations […] […]

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Is this getting sick or what? We now receive a report that a British Journal, devoted to medical ethics, publishes an article esposing infanticide–if the baby is disabled but won’t die from its disability and has to be killed. A … Continue reading →

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Hard to get dumber than this one. The “researchers” asked 155 men at a fertility clinic how much fruit and vegetables they ate. Exposure to pesticides was then guesstimated based on USDA reports about pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables. … Continue reading →

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The world market could be affected by the aggressive nature of Iran in the middle east and the disruptions. Marita discusses. Basin Energy Conference. I asked the attendees: “Why should each of you in this room be especially concerned about … Continue reading →

This is actually a well known phenomenon reported below in the Journal of Cardiology. Treated like a surprise? I remember many, many years ago the public outcomes reporting systems caused risk aversive behavior by hospitals and physicians. I saw the … Continue reading →

Captain Bill (USN Ret.) sent me this Blue Angels video with a retro to the Bearcat. Did you know that only the US Navy has a fleet of real aircraft carriers that launch with catapults and are capable of serious … Continue reading →

Scientists have just noticed that green, renewable biofuel competes with food production. From Science World Report, Biofuel Production May be Cutting into Our Food Supply and Raising Prices I’ve seen variants of this over the past few days and suppose … Continue reading →

A Russky (but there are others) predicts another cooling/ice problem. I would leave it at this–warm is good, more warm is gooder. Cold is bad, cooler is still bad. People do not do well with cool, or cold–kills, causes illness, … Continue reading →

I know, that’s like some word sound joke, but it describes him. Twofer time–essays by Roger Simon and Clarice Feldman on the bamster. I think both of them are considering the performance of the man/child/commie now that the Bergdahl delays … Continue reading →